Premier Kathleen Wynne stands with Ontario's Transport Minister Glenn Murray at a news conference on Sept. 18, 2013. All signs point to Ontario’s financial records not being reviewed before a spring election.Chris Young/The Globe and Mail
Politics Insider delivers premium analysis and access to Canada's policymakers and politicians. Visit the Politics Insider homepage for insight available only to subscribers.
With all signs pointing to an election in the spring of 2014, questions are swirling around whether Kathleen Wynne's Liberals are serious about getting Ontario out of deficit in the next few years.
This would appear to be just the sort of situation that a very good law brought in by former premier Dalton McGuinty – which provides for a review of the province's books by the auditor-general a few months before Ontarians go to the polls – was made for.
Unfortunately, it also appears we're gearing up for the first campaign in more than a decade in which such a review won't actually take place.
Under the Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act, the government is required before each election to submit revenue and expenditure projections for the current fiscal year and the next two years after that to the auditor, who then produces a report of his or her own. The catch is that this is contingent on fixed election dates, which Mr. McGuinty implemented around the same time.
Reached by phone this week, Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk – who has only been on the job a couple of weeks – said that to her understanding, the review won't be triggered if the current minority government falls before the end of its four-year mandate in 2015.
To understand why that might be problematic, it's instructive to look back at what prompted Mr. McGuinty to introduce the related legislation. Before his Liberals were first elected in 2003, the Progressive Conservative government of Ernie Eves insisted it wasn't running a deficit. This was widely disputed, but only after the election – when the Liberals brought in a former auditor-general to review the finances – was it reported that the province was in fact on pace for a $5.6-billion deficit that year.
There is nothing to suggest that the current government, which if anything has tended to overinflate its deficit projections so it can boast of beating them, is looking to pull a similar trick. But before the last campaign two years ago, the auditor's review proved useful in highlighting that the Liberals were banking on spending levels much lower than they had achieved previously. As it turned out, the government subsequently managed to meet those new targets, but only with divisive austerity measures on which it remained silent until after Ontarians had voted.
In the months ahead, there will be at least as much risk of tough choices being glossed over. Ms. Wynne is simultaneously seeking to maintain Mr. McGuinty's target of eliminating the deficit by 2017-18, to avoid major spending cuts, and to invest in new job-creation efforts. So it is hardly outside the realm of possibility that she and Finance Minister Charles Sousa will present overly optimistic forecasts, in a budget that could very well have to double as a campaign document.
Conversely, if the Liberals are being completely upfront about financial matters, the auditor's report could be to their advantage; without it, their opponents will be free to insinuate that they're underplaying how bad things are.
For that reason, if no other, there is some hope the government will try to find a way to get independent verification of its numbers before provincial politicians hit the hustings. The Liberals could choose to bring in the auditor despite not being required to do so, if there's enough of a window between the budget's tabling and the likely election call.
A better bet might be to work with the opposition parties to fast-track the appointment of the new Financial Accountability Officer, a position created as a concession to the third-party NDP. If that person is named by the end of this year, he or she might be able to keep an eye on the budget process and to offer a reasonably quick verdict on whether the numbers hold up.
When asked recently about what would happen to Mr. McGuinty's attempt to ensure fiscal transparency if there's a spring campaign, Liberals seemed not to have given it much thought one way or another. Considering that it's one of the more admirable components of a legacy that has otherwise taken a beating of late, perhaps they should.
Adam Radwanski is The Globe and Mail's columnist covering Ontario politics.